RIP- Roky Erickson (1947-2019), A Guest Post By Bill Bentley

Mike Siegel, the progressive Democrat running for a congressional seat that spans Roky Erickson's old turf from Austin to Houston, is too young to have experienced the 13th Floor Elevators in person but when Roky passed away on Friday he told me that "Roky’s departure will be felt deeply here in Austin. My wife Hindatu, a veterinarian by trade, is in a local singing group [Panoramic Voices] that had the honor of performing with Roky just a couple months ago. He continued to share his vision and creativity with us until the end, and we are forever grateful." I hadn't spoken with an old friend, Bill Bentley, in quite some time but when I heard that Roky Erickson had died I thought that I should call Bill. He beat me to it and we spent a long time on the phone talking about a singer and songwriter we both admired. Bill had just spent some time with Roky the week before. He and I used to work together at Warner Bros and Bill had put together the incredible tribute to Roky Erickson that we released in 1990, Where The Pyramid Meets The Eye, 22 songs by artists whose music has been influenced by Erickson-- from ZZ Top, Doug Sahm and REM to Primal Scream, John Wesley Harding and the Jesus and Mary Chain. It wouldn't surprise me if Bill writes a book about Roky but he wrote this piece for DWT today. First... one of my own favorite songs from Where The Pyramid Meets The Eye:






May the Circle Remain Unbroken
-by Bill Bentley

Every 15-year-old needs a hero. It's a year when the world really stars turning at a faster rate: a lot of the old toys of childhood become meaningless and a new search for meaning begins in earnest. For me, that search led to a rock & roll club in Houston called La Maison, and a band called the 13th Floor Elevators. There was some kind of glow around the band's name, like it meant more than just a moniker. In 1966 Houston was about as uptight as a city could get, with police on the lookout for minorities and long-haired reprobates to harass as often as possible. Just going to La Maison could involved a law enforcement juggernaut, but it was worth. Once inside the club, waiting for the Elevators to start, an electrical force surged through the audience. You could almost see it. A counterculture was being born, and as powerful as the Beatles and the Rolling Stones were then, it wasn't enough. In Texas, we needed our own musical gurus to follow. It wasn't good enough to always be looking to Great Britain for the next surge. It was time to born our own.




When the five Elevators took the stage that night in Houston, everything changed. Before there wasn't a light strong enough to pull the ravenous youth brigade together. Things were split up, with different factions pulling in different directions. With the oncoming wave of psychedelics, though, division wasn't an option. This mind expansion pursuit was serious business, and it would take devotion and leaders. Dr. Timothy Leary was too far away, plus he was from the East Coast. We didn't need anybody from that side of the country telling us how to become enlightened. Texans are a proud crowd, and we wanted our own shamans. Roky Erickson, Tommy Hall, Stacy Sutherland, John Ike Walton and Bennie Thurman were based in Austin, which was ideal to lead us into the new age. Austin had always been the most enlightened spot in the Lone Star state. It had the University of Texas, the hill country and an always inquisitive crowd seeking to push beyond conventional boundaries. Besides, the 13th Floor Elevators were openly promising a new way to perceive life, which is exactly what we were looking for. Their small record label, International Artists, was headquartered in Houston, created by rich oil men, a lawyer or two and a Svengali of a front man named Lelan Rogers, older brother of Kenny, who had been the bass player in the Bobby Doyle Trio but was not fronting a band called the First Edition. Lelan knew his way around the record business, and had picked the Elevators as his ticket to Valhalla. The band's first single, "You're Gonna Miss Me," was already roaring up the local radio charts, a little under three minutes of contained hysteria.




To say the audience that night at La Maison was ready was about as big an understatement as the state of Texas itself. So when Roky Erickson, all of 19 years old, walked onstage it seemed like he was floating. He had a cherubic countenance crossed with an other-worldly aura. Erickson's smile was almost as big as his face, and it looked like he knew he possessed a magic potion inside the band's music that was going to change everyone's lives forever in the matter of a few minutes. He plugged in his glowing red Gibson electric guitar, and looked around at his bandmates to see if they were ready to light the fuse. On the singer's left, Stacy Sutherland created a cocoon of darkness around him, like he held certain secrets within he wasn't quite ready to share. Drummer John Ike sat atop a mountain of drums and cymbals, tall and regal and ready to pound everything he got his hands on he could reach. Bassist Bennie Thurman was a flat-out pirate, wearing a big hoop earring on his left ear in a time when men simply did not wear earrings. He also had a somewhat crazed look of a man who had just been released from a cage of some kind. The last Elevator, on Erickson's far right, was the Lonesome End of the band. He stood solitary in his own world, holding a large clay jug that he would play with a microphone held near the opening at the top. Dressed in a pitch-black Navy P-coat and sporting the transcendent smile of an enlightened scientist, it was Hall who had first formed the 13th Floor Elevators. Convinced that through the use of psychedelic drugs mankind could find a way to evolve into higher beings, he decided a rock & roll band would be the perfect project to share his findings. So he formed the Elevators, wrote the lyrics to most of their songs and began the march to infamy and influence. The orders had been given, and the quintet began their mission.

Once the music started, it was Roky Erickson that split the atom and took the audience on a jet-propelled ride into the future with the Elevators providing the rocket-engine propulsion behind him. I've never seen anything like it, before or since. Songs would begin with a small sonic boom, and then gain in firepower exponentially with each verse. By the chorus, everyone in the audience was hanging on each syllable and chord, having entrusted their psyches to this brand new musical phenomenon called psychedelic rock. Outside the club was a booming city in the chaos of being on the edge of massive changes, but inside La Maison was the spiritual beginning of how music could build a world of its own, devoid of the eggshell existence of normal life. No other band had ever crossed that bridge, but tonight the Elevators were reaching out their hands through songs like "Reverberbation," "Fire Engine," "Rollercoaster" and "The Kingdom of Heaven (Is Within You)" and giving us all an invitation to go there with them. We would look at each other in the audience and seal the deal that this would be our lives, this would be the thing that let us live inside eternity and find salvation once and for all. Since its birth rock & roll had promised that it would save the day, and now--beyond Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry, the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, beyond them all--the prophets had arrived to deliver that momentous gift.

By the end of the evening in 1966 Roky Erickson was beatific. He stood onstage and didn't move. He just looked into the crowd with eyes that promised a new beginning. And that's the way he was for the next 53 years, until he passed away May 31, 2019. I would see him share his music hundreds of nights, sometimes in the roar and sometimes in the silence. In those years Erickson had lived a thousand lifetimes, often in the confusion of mental illness, and, blessedly, even in the euphoric nirvana of total bliss. I had loyally followed him all those years, no matter where the path took us, believing that in him I had found someone who would share with me an eternal light. And it was always there, even when very few could still see it. But I am a believer, and through him learned that the outside world should not lock us in. Rather, it's the inner world where time disappears and our spirit sets the clock. When I saw him performing all those 13th Floor Elevators songs in San Francisco a few weeks ago, his eyes still carried the magic, even if his body struggled being tied to this physical world. Now he has broken that earthly bond and moved into the cosmos his mind has lived in for so long. One day we will surely follow him there, hopefully to a place where we can share this life and all the others in store for us. And that circle will remain unbroken right past infinity.

Cruz Has Top Surrogate Brent Bozell Tell Right Wing Extremists Herr Trumpf Will Soon Be Roadkill

That's how Trumpf sees it... but Trumpf's an idiot

Herr Trumpf spent Christmas Eve tweeting about Bill Clinton's schlong and about how he's going to beat Hillary in November, probably unaware of how forces inside the Republican Party are aligning to deny him the opportunity to win a GOP nomination he assumes is "in the bag." And I'm not even talking about the weak establishment hacks like Jeb, Kasich, Rubio, Christie and their media and billionaire-backers who apparently don't even collectively have the strength to fight their way out of an already-shredded paper bag. But, as we've been noting for several weeks, the party's far right has now coalesced and unified around Ted Cruz-- despite the two-faced thing that is causing some jitters on the right-- and Cruz is set to beat Herr Trumpf decisively in Iowa and go on to finish off his embarrassing, all-hot-air campaign on Confederate Super Tuesday.

On Christmas Eve, Cruz surrogate and fringe blabber-mouth Brent Bozell III, penned an OpEd for Breitbart, the heart of Trumpf-territory: It Is Time For Conservatives To Rally Around Ted Cruz. He snidely refers to Rubio as Bush Lite, dismisses Ben Carson's campaign as "having run its course  and asserts that "the numbers just aren't there for" RandPaul, Fiorina, Huckabee or Rick Santorum. "Ted Cruz," he points out, "is surging. He's on top in Iowa He’s gaining ground everywhere else. He has organizations in place in every state that matters.  He’s raised more money than anyone except Jeb Bush." And, unlike Bush, who's spent much of his donors' money (wastefully), Cruz has barely touched his. And Bozell asserts that the reason Cruz is on top is because "Conservatives nationally are seeing that he’s the one candidate who is going to return this country to her Constitutional foundations and Judeo-Christian values." (And Trumpf took time out from obsessing about schlongs to announce that he's actually going to a church!)

On every issue of crucial importance to conservatives-- defunding Planned Parenthood, ending the Obamacare nightmare, reducing the size of government, opposing amnesty-- Cruz is not only with conservatives, he’s led the fight for conservatives.

Some Republicans vote the right way on these issues. Few stick their necks out and challenge the Washington DC GOP establishment. He’s done it over and over, fearlessly. It’s what leaders do.

Some say him constantly doing this makes Cruz one of the most reviled men in Washington.

It’s hard to imagine a more prestigious title. America is fed up with the establishment in Washington, especially the Republican leadership that constantly flat-out lies to voters promising an agenda they have no intention of honoring.

Ted Cruz could play that game too. Life would be easy. But he came to Washington to change Washington. He’s the one candidate the establishment most fears-- because he will.

My friend Richard Viguerie always asks an important question when it comes to a candidate claiming to be a conservative, which they all do because they cannot be elected without conservatives.  Does he walk with us? Where was he or she before the campaign? Were they regulars at our meetings and conferences? Were they helping conservative candidates, organizations, causes?

Or are they conveniently “conservatives” now because they need us?

Ted Cruz has been a part of the movement since the start of his career in Texas. No other candidate-- none-- can say this.

Ronald Reagan was with us decades before he was elected president.  He shared our cause not just politically, not just philosophically, but in his heart. For that he was despised by the establishment of both parties. He was undeterred. He ran for the presidency not be president but to change the world. And did.

But can he win?

There’s nothing the Left would like more than to see Donald Trump win the GOP nomination. He cannot, will not defeat Hillary Clinton. She will be our next president, and God help us then.

Only Ted Cruz can defeat Trump; and if he does, he’ll defeat Hillary.

The Left knows this reality too. This is why the vicious, personal attacks against Cruz are underway. He’s been through this before, and all the establishment-led character assassination attempts in the past have failed. This time they will be more malicious than ever.

Make no mistake: Cruz isn’t just surging right now-- he’s winning the Republican primary. As political analyst Nomiki Konst observed at The Hill, “All the focused polls in early primary states this week show Cruz’s momentum growing, a reflection of his formulaic long-term strategy centered on fundraising, investment in ground game across the country, key endorsements and messaging to a coalition of conservative voters.”

Konst adds, “Hyper-disciplined, Cruz’s multifaceted strategy-- a formula of raising and saving cash, prioritizing field over media, focusing on evangelicals and anti-establishment conservatives-- has solidified support across all primary states. And in coming weeks, as candidates fade, expect Trump’s tirades to continue, and watch as Cruz quietly capitalizes.”

It’s time for every conservative leader to stand and be counted.

It’s time for the movement to rally around Ted Cruz, to make him the next president of the United States.

Bozell is correct about Democrats wanting to run against Trumpf... but Ted Cruz is a close runner-up. His extremism is perfectly suited for a Republican primary dominated by angry bigots, naive evangelicals and Hate Talk Radio zombies... and perfectly anathema to the kinds of mainstream voters that successful candidates for the White House have to appeal to. Earlier this month, the National Memo listed 5 reasons why Cruz is scarier than Herr Trumpf, all reasonable. But this was #5:

He’s brilliant and he loves that you think he’s crazy. 
Ted Cruz is an Ivy League-educated savant who plays an animatronic Reagan impersonator/Internet commenter on TV. Anyone who believes his eagerness to enrage liberals for stupidity will be sadly disappointed. If you want to understand the extent that he goes to in order to affect his image as a perfectly realized Christian conservative, read this by Jeb Lund: Ted Cruz Isn’t Crazy-- He’s Much Worse.”

His ability to signal and market his lunacy is entirely the result of “intelligent design.” Even his gaffes are scripted and planned. Even his failures are designed to prove his purity. Even his willingness to cower to Trump is a sign that he believes he will win because any other outcome is unacceptable to Ted Cruz and God.

The Lund link above is worth clicking on. Spoiler Alert: "Ted Cruz is too smart not to know that replacing all of Planned Parenthood's services with "rubbers" is objectively stupid. He knows claiming that Christian terrorism has been dormant for centuries is a contemptuous violation of an even Jeopardy!-level understanding of history. He knows a bearded mass shooter who mentioned "baby parts" was probably not firing from the left side of the aisle in defense of his feminine identity, but he knows speculating about it commits him to nothing. These assertions form a web of cold malignancy too tactically useful to lack intent. It's a work, and it works. It's his ticket to the main event."

Are Some Congressmembers Willing To See Their Constituents Become Unhealthy In Return For Contributions?

It's probably not news to most DWT readers that corrupt conservatives in Congress always put the special interests of their contributors from the junk food industry and from biotech companies ahead of food safety. You may have read that Thursday the FDA-- not Reagan's FDA or Bush's FDA or Hillary's FDA but Obama's FDA-- approved, for the first time ever, genetically engineered salmon. No, not for pet food, which would be bad enough, but for people food. The company that will benefit AquaBounty Technologies hired one of K Street's sleaziest lobbying firms, Policy Directions-- which also lobbies for Nestle Infant Nutrition and Nestle Purina PetCare-- to get the job done for them. Before they could get FDA approval they had to get Mike Pompeo's H.R. 1599 passed, the Orwellian-named "Safe and Accurate Food Labeling Act of 2015," which prevents the FDA from requiring the labeling of bioengineered foods and makes it illegal for any individual state to require GMO labeling of food. It passed on July 23 275-150, 138 progressives Democrats and a dozen libertarian-leaning Republicans voting against it. Of the 45 Democrats who joined the GOP to pass their Frankenfood bill almost all were from the corrupt Republican wing of the Democratic Party, like Donald Norcross (NJ), Gwen Graham (FL), Brad Ashford (NE), Kyrsten Sinema (AZ), Dan Lipinski (IL), Ami Bera (CA), Jim Cooper (TN), Collin Peterson (MN), Jim Costa (CA), Kurt Schrader (OR), basically most of the same garbage Democrats who voted against the Syrian refugees Thursday.

"It was a flawed and irresponsible approval ... It sets a very dangerous precedent, given our federal government agencies are ill-equipped to handle genetically engineered animals," said Dana Perls, food and technology campaigner at Friends of the Earth, an international network of environmental organizations that has vehemently fought AquaBounty's efforts. "I think it is a grave mistake we will come to regret."

Perls said her group and others would continue to try to undermine the market for the fish. "It’s clear: People don’t want to eat it," she said. "We’re going to continue to work with grocery stores and retailers to continue to listen to consumers who don’t want to eat this under-studied, unlabeled GMO fish."

Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska) has long opposed the AquaBounty fish, saying that its existence would threaten a mainstay industry of his state. He repeatedly has pushed for delays in the FDA approval process, telling the Post in a 2012 interview that he hoped such hurdles eventually would "break that company."

"This harebrained decision goes to show that our federal agencies are incapable of using common sense," Young said in a statement Thursday. "By embarking on this science experiment, the FDA ignores fundamental risk questions related to our wild fish species and food safety."

Whole Foods, Trader Joe's and even Target have assured food activist groups they won't carry the Frankenfish. One major problem is that Pompeo's "Safe and Accurate Food Labeling Act" specifically prohibits labeling this kind of dangerous product so people will have no way of knowing if they're getting real salmon or garbage and there will be a good chance that any salmon you buy in a few years that isn't labeled "wild caught" will probably turn your child into a two-headed dog.



So how do you know which Members of Congress are, generally speaking, the good guys and the bad guys on food issues? Luckily for us all, Food Policy Action has released a scorecard rating every Member of Congress based on how they voted on food policy issues including "domestic and international hunger, food safety, food access, farm subsidies, animal welfare, food and farm labor, nutrition, food additives, food transparency, local and regional food production, organic farming and the effects of food production on the environment." This is a list of House Members who scored 100%. These people are trying to keep you and your family safe:

• Karen Bass (D-CA)
• Joyce Beatty (D-OH)
• Xavier Becerra (D-CA)
• Brendan Boyle (D-PA)
• Julia Brownley (D-CA)
• Michael Capuano (D-MA)
• Matt Cartwright (D-PA)
• Judy Chu (D-CA)
• David Cicilline (D-RI)
• Catherine Clark (D-MA)
• Yvette Clarke (D-NY)
• Steve Cohen (D-TN)
• John Conyers (D-MI)
• Elijah Cummings (D-MD)
• Pete DeFazio (D-OR)
• Diana DeGette (D-CO)
• Rosa DeLauro (D-CT)
• Mark DeSaulnier (D-CA)
• Debbie Dingell (D-MI)
• Mike Doyle (D-PA)
• Donna Edwards (D-MD)
• Keith Ellison (D-MN)
• Eliot Engel (D-NY)
• Elizabeth Esty (D-CT)
• Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI)
• Ruben Gallego (D-AZ)
• Alan Grayson (D-FL)
• Raul Grijalva (D-AZ)
• Luis Gutierrez (D-IL)
• Janice Hahn (D-CA)
• Denny Heck (D-WA)
• Brian Higgins (D-NY)
• Mike Honda (D-CA)
• Steny Hoyer (D-MD)
• Hank Johnson (D-GA)
• Marcy Kaptur (D-OH)
• Joe Kennedy (D-MA)
• Dan Kildee (D-MI)
• Ann Kuster (D-NH)
• Jim Langevin (D-RI)
• John Larson (D-CT)
• Barbara Lee (D-CA)
• Sandy Levin (D-MI)
• John Lewis (D-GA)
• Ted Lieu (D-CA)
• Alan Lowenthal (D-CA)
• Nita Lowey (D-NY)
• Caroline Maloney (D-NY)
• Jim McDermott (D-NY)
• Jim McGovern (D-MA)
• Grace Meng (D-NY)
• Gwen Moore (D-WI)
• Jerry Nadler (D-NY)
• Grace Napolitano (D-CA)
• Richard Neal (D-MA)
• Richard Nolan (D-MN)
• Frank Pallone (D-NJ)
• Donald Payne (D-NJ)
• Nancy Pelosi (D-CA)
• Chellie Pingree (D-ME)
• Mark Pocan (D-WI)
• Charlie Rangel (D-NY)
• Bobby Rush (D-IL)
• Tim Ryan (D-OH)
• Linda Sanchez (D-CA)
• John Sarbannes (D-MD)
• Jan Schakowsky (D-IL)
• Adam Schiff (D-CA)
• Bobby Scott (D-VA)
• Jose Serrano (D-NY)
• Brad Sherman (D-CA)
• Louise Slaughter (D-NY)
• Jackie Speier (D-CA)
• Mark Takai (D-HI)
• Dina Titus (D-NV)
• Paul Tonko (D-NY)
• Niki Tsongas (D-MA)
• Chris Van Hollen (D-MD)
• Pete Viscolsky (D-IN)
• Maxine Waters (D-CA)
• Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-NJ)
• Peter Welch (D-VT)
• Frederica Wilson (D-FL)
• John Yarmuth (D-KY)

I feel a need to mention that there are plenty of terrible legislators on this list-- like Steny Hoyer and Denny Heck for example-- but who are good on food issues. The Members Blue America has endorsed this cycle are highlighted and linked to a contribution page. The very worst Members of the House on food issues-- 13 men and one woman who must sit home and try to figure out how to kill their constituents are, predictably all Republicans, not just corrupt, but also ideologically insane:

• Tim Huelskamp (R-KS)
• Glenn Grothman (R-WI)
• George Holding (R-NC)
• Austin Scott (R-GA)
• Paul Gosar (R-AZ)
• Ted Yoho (R-FL)
• Mia Love (R-UT)
• John Ratcliffe (R-TX)
• Greg Harper (R-MS)
• Tom Graves (R-GA)
• Jody Hice (R-GA)
• Doug Lamborn (R-CO)
• Tom Rice (R-SC)
• Rob Woodall (R-GA)

Is Sharron Angle A Zombie?

Hearing Rand Paul and Dino Rossi "debate" on the same night is a little too much for me. Even braving a Maureen Dowd NY Times column on the "Republican Mean Girls" seemed like it might work as a palliative. 

We are in the era of Republican Mean Girls, grown-up versions of those teenage tormentors who would steal your boyfriend, spray-paint your locker and, just for good measure, spread rumors that you were pregnant.

These women-- Jan, Meg, Carly, Sharron, Linda, Michele, Queen Bee Sarah and sweet wannabe Christine-- have co-opted and ratcheted up the disgust with the status quo that originally buoyed Barack Obama. Whether they’re mistreating the help or belittling the president’s manhood, making snide comments about a rival’s hair or ripping an opponent for spending money on a men’s fashion show, the Mean Girls have replaced Hope with Spite and Cool with Cold. They are the ideal nihilistic cheerleaders for an angry electorate.

Seated next to Brewer at the bridge dedication was Harry Reid, the slight, mild-mannered, 70-year-old Senate majority leader who has wandered into the surprise fight of his career-- a race where the fur is flying.

“Man up, Harry Reid,” Sharron Angle taunted him at their Las Vegas debate here Thursday night. That’s not an idle insult, coming from a woman who campaigns at times with a .44 Magnum revolver in her 1989 GMC pickup.

With casino red suit and lipstick, Angle played the Red Queen of the Mad Hatter tea party, denouncing career politicians and ordering “Off with your head!” and “Down with government benefits!” Even sober and smiling beneath her girlish bangs, the 61-year-old Angle had the slightly threatening air of the inebriated lady in a country club bar, tossing off outrageous statements and daring anyone to call her on them.

The debate between the former boxer and the former competitive weight lifter, the soft-spoken Mormon and the outspoken Christian, was a source of fascination because the rivals perfectly represent the two caricatures of the midterms: The Washington incumbent and master of back-room deals who’s been around forever and lost touch with people versus the wacky new-breed Tea Party challenger who’s hiding from and hating on the press, spouting a lot of weird stuff and vowing to do what Barack Obama didn’t: Shake up Washington.

It didn't work as a palliative. So I made the little Roky Erickson video above. That worked. Do you have a favorite zombie? I can't believe Maureen left out Virginia Foxx. I didn't.